Public Health Approach

William Haddon developed the classic approach to injury control by identifying the three principal factors of injury (host, vehicle, and environment) and subdividing each factor by the three temporal phases of an injury event: pre-event; the event itself; and the postevent phase. This resulted in a "phase-factor" matrix of nine discrete cells.2 Examining these cells can suggest various strategies to prevent or control injuries. Since its introduction in 1972, the Haddon matrix has proven to be an invaluable tool for injury control.

Haddon outlined 10 generic injury-control strategies that can be utilized to break the chain of injury causation ( Table...258:l).3 Examining this list to identify promising approaches to injury control is known as options analysis. Certain options lend themselves more easily to one class of injuries than others. The best injury control option is not always the most obvious. Often a combination of approaches is superior to any single strategy.

The term vaginitis is one that is applied to any inflammation or infection of the vagina, and there are many different conditions that are categorized together under this ‘broad’ heading, including bacterial vaginosis, trichomoniasis and non-infectious vaginitis.